chieftain
Americannoun
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chieftains
plural
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the chief of a clan or a tribe.
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a leader of a group, band, etc..
the robbers' chieftain.
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Military. Chieftain, Britain's main battle tank since 1969, fitted with a 120 mm gun and two machine guns and weighing 55 tons (50 metric tons).
noun
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the head or leader of a tribe or clan
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the chief of a group of people
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of chieftain
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English cheftayne, variant of chevetaine, from Old French, from Late Latin capitāneus “chief”; see captain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Datu Atom Malimpnig, a Maguindanaon chieftain, said the newly formed coastline had left the group of fishermen and their families hesitant to return to their now-destroyed homes.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
“What were we supposed to do? Watch them get slaughtered and be silent?” said Muwaffaq Tarif, the spiritual chieftain of the 150,000-strong Druze community in Israel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 21, 2025
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde—Gen. Franco to you and me; Caudillo de España, or chieftain of Spain, to his countrymen—died on Nov. 20, 1975.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
Charity Adams, changed back to “Fort Lee,” I can only imagine how the SCV and others would respond to a re-renaming after any Lee other than their holy Confederate chieftain.
From Slate ● Feb. 12, 2025
He thought the flocks and herds of the Greeks were the Army, and rushed to kill them, believing that he was slaying now this chieftain, now that.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
The disconnect between slackening activity and the increasing yield has mystified even oil chieftains.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
Zero rates took the pressure off corporate chieftains to restructure, innovate, and take risks, as Japan Inc. did before QE arrived.
From Barron's ● Dec. 17, 2025
On the other hand, the possibly revolutionary impact from artificial intelligence argues that maybe it is still early days, no matter how abrasively these chieftains behave.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 5, 2025
Porter’s national prominence grew when, during congressional hearings, she grilled Trump administration officials and corporate chieftains using her whiteboard to make esoteric policy understandable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2025
In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
